True Neutral
by Masako Moonshade
Summary: On a mission of mercy, Megamind finds himself caught between the forces of good and evil. T for blood and some language.
1. Chapter 1

AN: For the record, I typically shy away from writing OCs in fanfics. You came here to read about Megamind and company, not anybody of my invention- that in mind, bear with me. I'm hoping to keep this one from taking too great a part, unless reviews suggest otherwise.

* * *

It was Roxanne Ritchie who first stumbled onto the situation, and, as anticipated, it was Roxanne Ritchie who brought it to light.

She'd been called in to do a piece on the cop killer that had made last night's evening news—though not without a bit of hesitation on the part of Mr. Jamison. He made very clear—wouldn't stop repeating it, in fact—that she was being given a choice on the matter. After all, the same gun-toting maniac would have shot her if Megamind hadn't stepped in and 'neutralized the situation', and so this was considered to be one of those stories to which Roxanne would be considered 'psychologically sensitive'. If it had been anybody else, Jamison would have sent her home to recover, but her boss knew her better than that. She'd been through worse and come to work the next day—but this?

This was a bit weird, even by Roxanne's standards.

She'd been escorted by armed guards through a jail cell before for her interviews—the solitary confinement cells were particularly familiar, though Megamind had been long since removed from the maximum security cell. The people there were always dangerous, and often insane… but even so, she'd never seen quite this much blood on these cell walls before.

The woman was of average height, average build, mid-thirties—the kind you could see greeting you at the grocery store. You know, when she wasn't hurling herself at the bars of her cell and clawing at the lock until her hands bled. Her hoarse shrieks, when they weren't filled with obscenities, were all variations of "You've got to let me out" and "I'm running out of time"—

Until her eyes fell on Roxanne.

Suddenly she became quiet and still. It was an addict's stillness—every fiber of her body was shaking, her eyes were wide with relief and terror at the same time. For a long moment the only sound was of breathing and the slow drip of blood from the woman's hands.

"You!" she cried when that moment passed, her voice that high pitched fusion of a laugh and a sob. Roxanne resisted the urge to take a step back. "You! You have to tell them—no." The woman shook her head so violently that something—tears or spittle, Roxanne couldn't tell which—scattered around her. "No. No, no, no. Don't waste your breath. Tell _him_. Tell him to—" Again she shook her head. "Just tell him. Tell him!"

Roxanne took a breath. Build rapport with the interviewee. That was the secret. Even if she had watched this woman gun down eight men less than twenty four hours before. Even if that same gun had turned on herself.

"Tell who?" she asked.

"_Him_!" the woman cried, hitting her forehead… no. No, she wasn't hitting it. Her hand never touched her face. It went slightly up and out. She was motioning a large head. _Megamind_.

"Him," the woman whimpered. Roxanne's mind was going a hundred directions at once as she mapped out the possibilities. This woman could either be high—or going through some seriously nasty withdrawal—or insane. Megamind was a public figure now, a household name to everyone in the city, so it wouldn't be too hard to imagine someone in this state wanting an autograph—or more, as some of his less appropriate fans had indicated. But something about this was off. Megamind had caught this woman—dehydrated her, after judicious use of an anti-gravity field—was she out for revenge? Or was it something else?

"What do you want me to tell him?"

For a moment the woman looked like a dog that had been offered a treat—every muscle in her body perked up—and then she looked around the room, and just as quickly she seemed to deflate. She sank to her knees on the cell, her bloody hands leaving red streaks on the bars.

"Your interview," the woman mumbled. Her voice was oddly devoid of life. "That's what you're here for, right? I have a therapist, you know. As of two weeks ago I showed no signs of mental illness or unusual levels of stress. The last time I touched any kind of drug it was pot in college. I only drink socially, and there's no history of mental illness or substance abuse in my family." As suddenly as she'd deflated the woman's eyes were back on Roxanne, boring into her soul.

"But you don't do what I did without a reason. And I have a reason."

Roxanne crouched down, bringing herself to the woman's level. "What is that?" she asked, but the woman just shook her head.

"Just tell him," she muttered. "Tell him. Tell him. Tell him."

"Do you have a statement to give the people of Metro City?" Roxanne asked, trying to assert herself. Even with two armed guards at her back, this was… unnerving. "Do you want to explain why you did—"

"Nothing," the woman said. "Just tell him. Please tell him." And just as suddenly the woman's mood shifted again, suddenly frightened and sincere and desperate. "Tell him to hurry."

She kept muttering it long after Roxanne left.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thanks for the reviews and the interest so far. I'm still working the kinks out of writing Roxanne and Megamind in character, so please forgive any OOCness with them while I hammer them down. And to answer your question, **Ninnik Nishukan,** and put down any other worries on the subject, there's no variations of torture porn intended here. There will be blood in future chapters, though, so those with weak stomachs have been warned.

* * *

One of the big advantages of having an ex-supervillain for a local hero was that he had an excess of Brainbots at his disposal. They regularly patrolled the streets in his place, keeping a lookout for crime—and reporting most of that to the cops. The city had other people who could take care of small time crime, who had a budget dedicated to their efforts. Big situations, the kind that actually required a superhero, were thankfully rarer, and that left his schedule more than free enough for little quirks in his agenda. Like picking Roxanne up from work.

Normally it was unnecessary (in fact, she usually insisted against it), but he'd developed a habit of getting over-protective when her life was recently threatened, and today officially qualified.

"_Sooooo_…" he said, sounding as casual as Megamind possibly could as she climbed into his car. He even managed to avoid steepling his fingers in anticipation. "How was the interview?" Questions along the lines of 'did she threaten you' 'did she hurt you' and 'have you been traumatized' were conspicuously swallowed back in favor of more polite inquiry.

"Less than enlightening," she replied. "She wasn't exactly cooperating." It would have come out as frustrated if she wasn't quite so… unnerved by the event. It was still weird. The psycho had shot at her last night, and _that_ hadn't hit quite as strong a nerve as this. "Did that lady look particularly… crazy yesterday?" Not exactly a subtle question—immediately Megamind turned away from the steering wheel (thank God for a decent autopilot in his car) and turned to face her, scrutinizing every visible inch of skin for signs of injury— and eyeing her blouse like an old nemesis. She swore it wasn't physically possible for a human's spine to bend the way his did at that moment.

"…Why?" he asked, drawing the word out so long it gained at least eight syllables. After nearly a year of dating, dangerous stunts and daring escapes, he knew better to jump to conclusions. Not openly, at least.

"She was… I don't know, weird," Roxanne said, turning away from him for a moment to glance out the window. "Crazy." But already she was answering her own question—the woman she'd seen last night hadn't been anything like this. She'd been cold. Determined. And she'd seen the expression on her face before. Her eyes narrowed and she looked at Megamind, trying to compare the face she'd seen the night before with the one he'd worn when fighting Tighten.

Desperation. Resigned desperation.

"Is… everything all right?" he continued while the car swerved on its own accord. She could practically see the wheels turning behind his no-longer-evil face—he was trying to hedge around the obvious questions without saying them outright. She decided to save him the trouble and just cut to the chase.

"She said she wanted to talk to you."

Megamind drew back, his brow furrowing at the suggestion, and he returned his hands to the wheel.

"She tried to kill you," he said flatly.

"So have you," she pointed out. Immediately he flared up at the (sort-of) accusation.

"Yes, but _I_ never intended for it to succeed. It's entirely different."

"She said she had a reason," Roxanne said, glancing out the window. "And she said to hurry."

"Which is a ridiculous reason to go see a clearly insane individual. There are far more important things to do. The lair needs to be organized—"

"Minion does that."

"—And dinner needs to be prepared—"

"He does that too."

"—And the invisible car needs to be detailed—"

"He did that yesterday."

"—And there are a may-raid of heroic things that need to be seen to."

"It's myriad," she said. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was not the time to be sympathetic for a clearly crazy person who had been trying to kill her. But maybe it was. "And… I still think you should do it." She put on her persuasive face—the one that had gotten her far more ridiculous favors than fighting ever had. That was another advantage of having an ex-supervillain around—he wasn't well versed at resisting anything remotely close to feminine wiles. "This one just feels… like there's more to it than that. There's a story here. I know it."


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Special thanks to my fantastic new Beta, **Patriot Jackie**, who's helping me with this story.

* * *

For the record, Megamind did show up that evening.

Unfortunately, at the moment of arrival, the woman was unconscious. Using his decidedly not villainous, very super-heroic deduction skills, she'd probably been sedated. Judging by the bandages that covered her hands, she'd needed it.

Oh well. At the very least it allowed for him to catch up with old friends. The Warden was doing well, and Lucky Joe had lost yet another toe to a bungled break-in, and Stink-Eye Malone had a fantastic new tattoo design that was currently taking the prison by storm. He wasn't so well informed about the other half of the inmates—the ones who called him a double-crosser and traitor. The ones who now eyed him with surprisingly scathing glares and drowned out every word he tried to say with screams and curses.

Going through those hallways had become a patently unpleasant experience lately, which he'd rather avoid if at all possible. Still, he had to make the best of it, and a few poker games later he was finally free to fulfill his favor and get out of there. He was called back to the woman's cell just as she was starting to come to—how heavily did they have to sedate her, anyway? She blinked her eyes blearily at him and sat up.

"It's you," she mumbled.

"Yes," he replied with a flourish of his cape and a patented scowl. Unfortunately there was no one else around to be impressed by the display—the guards who'd told him to come here hadn't bothered accompanying him. He knew this prison inside and out anyway. No reason not to cut to the chase, then. "I believe you tried to murder Roxanne."

"No." The woman shook her head, in part looking like she just wanted to clear it. "Murder is… premeditated." Megamind huffed indignantly at the distinction. She'd had the pistol, aimed it, and fired. Whether she'd planned it in advance was completely irrelevant. "She… was just there. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong…" She shook her head again. "Just wrong. Everything about it is wrong." She tilted her head to the side, most of her face obscured by matted hair, and mumbled so quietly he could barely hear. "Like those cameras." For a moment her eyes flashed to the security cameras that were trained on her from behind him.

"Those?" he asked, making sure his voice came across as half bored and half disapproving of her stupidity. "Fake. Naturally. They feed into nothing. They seem to think being watched inspires one to… _docility_." He would have continued with a monologue on the ridiculous premises behind that notion, but that was about the point where the mad psycho killer started crying. Hysterically.

Which was… unexpected.

Megamind was an ex-supervillain, after all, but he generally tried to avoid making women cry—even if they _did_ deserve it for shooting at his loved ones. Besides, the abominable sounds she was making were rapidly becoming excruciating.

"That's enough now. Stop. Stop crying," he said, trying not to look like he was floundering too much. He was still angry at the woman—he wasn't about to start acting concerned. Instead he leaped into an authoritative stance: head back, feet apart, shoulders back, finger pointed imposingly at her face. "I command you to stop."

"They're fake," the woman shrieked between sobs. "All this time—I could have been trying to escape—I was scared to death—and those damned things—are fake—"

"Yes. Very… shocking. I know." This was still grossly uncomfortable. "Stop crying now."

"Right—no, you have to help me," she said, grabbing the bars and dragging herself to her feet. The drugs were still in effect—she was swaying dangerously in her attempt to stand. "You have to help me."

"I don't see why," Megamind said, crossing his arms with another flourish. If she thought he would help her escape just because he'd had experience in prison, she was sorely mistaken. She could cry all she wanted. He wasn't going to change his mind. He'd been a super-villain after all—he was more than used to hearing people scream and babies cry. His resolve was unshakable.

She shook her head. "No. Not me then. I get it. You don't like me. I pointed a gun at your girlfriend and you don't like me." The look he gave her clearly said: '_well duh'_. "Fine. _But my son didn't_." Let the records show that his resolve was not shaken even slightly. He was a little bit confused—that was a bit of a non-sequitor, wasn't it? The woman seemed frustrated by his decided non-reaction. "My son. Jordan. They have Jordan. They have him and they're going to kill him, do you understand me?"

"No," Megamind said. His eyebrows were lowering dangerously as he considered what it could possibly mean, though. "Explain it to me."


	4. Chapter 4

AN: If not for the fantastic work of **Patriot Jackie**, you would be reading about a hero who's more Batman than Megamind right now. Dark and brooding will come later, but only when they're actually deserved and appropriate in character.

* * *

They called themselves the Cypher, and their rendezvous point with the madwoman had been in an abandoned army surplus store on the seedy side of town. She had more information than that, but none of it that could be useful even to his impressive intellect—no names, rather pathetic descriptions of faces, and only the location of the things she'd stolen in the past two weeks (sans one, which he'd had to fish out of the police station's evidence locker—he was sure they wouldn't mind, and he had every intention of bringing it back when he was done. Besides, it was their fault entirely for not adding security to his favorite storage room in the last twenty-five years).

This all seemed remarkably like a trap. A rather poorly thought out trap, at that—nothing compared to even his most primitive of schemes. And it wasn't like he was particularly fond of kids or anything, but… even knowing what it probably was, he couldn't really bring himself to turn away from it. Because there was still the possibility of some poor kid being held hostage, waiting for his half-psycho mom to come rescue him, and she wouldn't. Couldn't.

And, damn it all, he'd been there once, behind bars while someone he loved was in danger. That had been an obvious trap, too. Tighten hadn't even tried to disguise that fact.

Which was why he was now here, in the most decrepit block in the city's commercial district. And which was why he was disguised as everybody's favorite psycho lady. For the record, Megamind did not really enjoy playing the part of a woman. The movements were irritating to imitate, especially with the addition of the half-drunken swagger that he'd seen on this target. It was demeaning. As was the fact that he was stuck in the conspicuous orange prison jumpsuit, looking like he'd just clawed his way out of a coffin, with nothing but an ill-fitting trench coat (Roxanne's idea) to divert the attention at passersby. Who, at eleven at night, were far more likely to make catcalls than ask questions.

The only reason he didn't dehydrate them on the spot (aside from the fact that it would break his cover) was that it had rained recently. The ground was still wet, and the misogynistic idiots would rehydrate the second they hit the floor (though Roxanne would approve regardless…).

As he wandered through the slummy looking streets he tried to get his focus. Unfortunately, that required focusing his astonishing powers of recollection on the previous night. There were so many more pleasant things to think about… but he was supposed to be serious for this. And jail-breaking blackmail victims were not supposed to arrive at the rendezvous with goofy smiles on their faces. It simply wasn't done. But that was fine. He could think serious thoughts.

It had been a research facility at the edge of town—not unexpected, since the previous targets had included two hospitals (one of the parts had been screwed out of an MRI interface) and an electronics warehouse. These weren't exactly the kind of machinery you could pick up at Radio Shack. It had been Roxanne's hunch that the last week's robberies had been connected, and it had been her suggestion that police stake out any locations that fit the pattern. And, naturally, she had to be lurking in her van with a radio scanner to check on what they found and be the first one on site to investigate the matter.

That was just like her.

From the looks of it, the woman had been hiding in a maintenance closet inside the facility until after hours. To her credit, she'd probably had no idea that the place was surrounded until she grabbed the useless piece of junk and triggered the alarm. And suddenly the place was surrounded and the air was thick with clichéd cries of "this is the police, come out with your hands up, blah blah blah" (though Megamind was pretty sure they didn't say that last part).

One woman, more than a dozen cops and one too-gutsy-for-her-own-good journalist. And then the shooting started.

Megamind was called in when the first officer was hit. By the time he arrived, seven more had been shot, two of them seriously. That was about the time Roxanne did that stupid, awful, heroic thing she tended to do and she took matters into her own hands—this time it involved grabbing a keyboard from the nearest desk and trying to beat the back of the woman's head in. Unfortunately for Roxanne, a computer's keyboard and the Forget-Me-Stick were far too different in design and density. The piece of plastic broke, and the woman was suddenly too dizzy to consider using Roxanne as a hostage.

She fired exactly once—even point blank it went wide, thanks to the bruise forming on the back of her cranium—before evaporating into a single steaming cube.

But what scared him, what truly scared him, was the fact that he wouldn't have dehydrated her if he'd had the time to change the gun's setting. He would have killed her in a heartbeat, right in front of Roxanne, and none of the men or women behind him would have blinked. Some of them might even have thanked him for it, once they found out how much damage she'd done to their friends and coworkers. Once they found out that two of them wouldn't live to see morning.

He would have gladly killed her to save Roxanne.

She had gladly killed two innocent people, just doing their jobs, to save her son. And then broken two of the bones in her hand trying to claw her way back to him.

And maybe it was this whole hero gig making him soft, but the fact that he could relate to her left him feeling more than a little bit queasy. That was enough now. He was more than serious enough to pass for the crazy lady with the itchy trigger finger.

He tightened his trench coat against the uncomfortable chill and kept moving. It had just stopped raining an hour before, but the oppressive moisture in the air foretold of another shower to come. When he reached the building he circled it once, looking for the entrance. There—some of the boards that had been nailed over the doors and windows had been loosened, and soggy footsteps disturbed the ground outside.

There would be quite a few of them. Fantastic.

He pushed open the door—only to be grabbed by the collar and yanked inside, his bag of goodies following him.

"Would you look at that," a gruff voice chuckled. "She made it after all."

"And here we thought you wouldn't show," said another, oilier voice. It was too dim, even for his vastly superior night vision—he could barely see a thing. Could definitely recognize some of those voices, though. "You made the news last night, sweetheart. Got yourself caught."

"I got myself uncaught," he said, rather grateful for the voice modulator in the watch. He'd been preparing an excuse if it malfunctioned, but enough of these men had eaten prison food to know it didn't damage the voice quite that badly. "And I've got your stuff. Now where's Jordan?"

"Don't worry," said the man Megamind recognized as Mad Mar—a man with a nasty reputation, even when Megamind had lived comfortably in prison. All oil and sweetness, until he did something really bad. Mar had taught him how to pick pockets and locks when he was a kid—he'd also been one of the old criminals offended by his conversion to the side of not-evil. "He's still safe and sound. Don't mess up next time, and you might just get all of him back." And Mar threw something into Megamind's hands, which he caught without thinking.

And then he threw it into the air again, suddenly wanting not to touch it—and then caught it again, because he couldn't just let it hit the ground—and the fumbling continued for quite some time while he tried to decide just what to do with it. Because it was still warm.

The voice modulator turned his yelp of shock and horror into something much more convincing for a woman who'd just been handed her son's severed finger.

"What did you do?" he demanded. His watch vibrated against his wrist just slightly, though not enough to make a sound—Minion was listening in to all of this. For the briefest instant Megamind felt the urge to call for help. There were enough brainbots stationed out there, and Roxanne was safe back at the lair (no way he'd leave her alone to be kidnapped while he went out to deal with known hostage-takers—that was just asking for trouble). It was tempting. He could even pull off a really heroic one-liner… but there were at least a dozen guys in here, all armed to the teeth, at least one of whom had no problems at all with de-fingering a kid.

He could make it out alive—even come out victorious—but the kid would be dead. Megamind swallowed and dropped the finger into the pocket of his trench coat. He'd need it for later, but… ew.

"Exactly what we said we would," Mar replied, pushing something else into Megamind's newly liberated hands. It was papery, rather than organic. A slight improvement. "There's your next order. Now go and be a good girl. And remember—anybody finds out—"

"Uh-huh," he managed to get out, before two pairs of powerful hands picked him up and threw him out.

* * *

"Minion," he muttered into his watch as soon as he was out of sight and hearing range. "I want everyone in that building followed. Discrehtly."

"How'd it go, sir?" the fish asked from the other side. He could hear furious typing as Minion gave directions to the brainbots. "I heard… yelling. Are you all right? Do you need any more backup?"

"Did they hurt you?" Roxanne added. Her voice was fuzzier, she was probably standing behind Minion, but she sounded frantic. "What happened? What did they do?"

"No, I'm… fine," he said flatly. Minion really should have known better than to let her listen in. "But the situation is… not what I thought it would be." It was way too big, way too nasty, with people who were way too far removed from the rules of the game he'd been raised to play. This sort of thing was what the SWAT team was for, wasn't it? Heroes were more for fighting archetypal villains and… and stuff.

And instantly his mind rebelled at the thought. Heroes might have been for the pathetically vanilla small-time crooks, but he was no hero. He was a _super_hero—who had once been a _super_villain, no less. He had the intellect, he had the gadgets, he had the talent and moves necessary to take this on. He just had to do this the right way. The smart way. And if anyone could do smart, it was him.

"This calls for a change in tactics."


End file.
